h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

What an interesting development in world finance.

The shoe clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gY0DOnNK3Wg

I never found this sort of thing funny. Probably because I'd think about people being that hungry, and it made me want to cry. Maybe people laughed because they'd been there, and it helped to laugh. I don't know.

Laurel and Hardy made me sad, too. Also the Andrews Sisters singing 'One Meatball'. I always felt sorry for people in the Depression.

I felt sorry for the Russian sailors who ate the tallow, too.

Interesting. I think a lot of comedy has an all too serious, tragic or uncomfortable edge to it.

Yes, perhaps to laugh at the awfulness of what one has been through is a coping mechanism, but it's quite double edged. Hmm.

Sometimes comedy has a sort of bittersweet edge to it, should I laugh? It makes me sweat a bit in fact.

The tragic clown. Hmm. I've known a few tragic clowns.

And so many comedians have struggled with their own personal darkness.. I remember when I first read about Spike Milligan I was shocked at how serious his depression was.

I wonder how I would define pure humour?

Does any humour not have an edge to it?

Hmm. Well, my favourite film right now is Harvey, the original B/W version with Jimmy Stewart. I have it on DVD. It makes me laugh so much but I cry also.

However, it could be pure humour to me because its not mocking crazy people, the type who choose to spend their lives chatting to 6ft 3in white rabbits. In fact the message is that crazy people aren't crazy at all, they're probably happier than so called normal people.

So perhaps Harvey, to me, is pure humour.

Or maybe there's no such thing as pure humour. Actually, I'm not sure about the word pure. It's a bit pure. .

Interesting thoughts though, about humour.

Recently, I watched a set by Maz Jabrani. He's an Iranian-American comedian. I love his humour - not a mean comment in the whole hour. And his show was called 'I'm not a terrorist, but I've played on on TV.'

He draws his audience into the humour, asks them questions about themselves - and then REMEMBERS what they said. His riffs on Persian American behaviour are priceless.

I've just been checking him. Hilarious! And also a master of his art.

Yes, he's a learning experience. Glad you liked him.

American paper currency, compounded of silk and linen, always would survive a trip through the washing machine.

I suppose that the minute silk threads embedded in the paper might be a problem for Vegans, a more pure form of vegetarian that rejects anything animal derived, even things like milk and honey, though most vegetarians do not.

On tallow candles, they're probably still made either at home or a light industrial basis, possibly hardened with a bit of beeswax, to this day.

They were the American standard for candles until the 1870s, when they began to be supplanted in the marketplace by petrochemical derived parafin wax at the same time kerosene began to displace whale oil from the lamp oil market

"parafin" should be "paraffin", there should be a period at the end of that sentence.

Taking it from there:

In French, 'paraffin' means what 'kerosene' means in American English.

American commercial candles these days are invariably petrochemical derived paraffin wax unless otherwise marked.

Other materials incorporated into the paraffin increase the cost and price.

Paraffin wax candles are the most temperature stable and the cleanest burning.

On American paper money testing positive for illicit drugs, it is a matter of fact which may have accelerated the move to credit and debit card shopping.

As to how the drugs got onto the paper money, it may have to do with drug transactions being primarily cash transactions, with the drugs and money traveling in the same containers.

Also dollar bills are often rolled up (spindled) to provide a cigarette holder, or straw for inhaling powders like cocaine, methamphetamine or PCP.

The last is an extremely dangerous osmosis absorbable mind altering drug no one in their right mind wants to mess with.

Morning ITI!

Ah kerosene! Another word for paraffin. I didn't know that, although I know the word kerosene. Kerosene lamp.

My husband was raised in the Scottish Highlands, his family didn't have electricity till 1958, when he was seven. So his first memories are the smell of the paraffin/kerosene lamps, and heater, and presumably paraffin wax candles.



I didn't know the dollar bill had such an association with drugs, how extraordinary. I wondered what Mister D meant when he referred to it, a few postings back.

Although in some film, I couldn't tell you which, I've seen someone rolling a dollar bill for snorting cocaine...

Which came first, the movie or the reality?



Hmm, yes, I guess everyone has to draw their own balance, as regards things like vegan or vegetarian principles, or any principles really.

I've known several fruitarians, and people who don't use wool, or eat honey. Then others who support local, so that includes locally reared meat.

I think with the diet question, you then run into other ethical problems like air miles and the use of huge trucks to bring in the imported food, like avocados and bananas and nuts and certain soya products and things.

My husband is currently into huge packets of blue corn chips that come from the States, so they've come a long way on a plane, but then he's supporting a local indie wholefood shop which sells them .. and so it goes on.

And then there's the clothes question. What a headache! Checking the labels, the country of origin, trying to figure if they're made in some terrible sweatshop somewhere.



And some days, if I'm feeling really in balance, I'll go tread on a snail by mistake, crunch. And I wear leather shoes because canvas shoes are no good in the rain, although the folks in the Vegetarian Shoe shop in Brighton that mvp mentioned would say there are other options. So then I feel bad, and I hear my leather shoes mooing, but then I bought them from a friend who runs an indie shoe and bag shop in town, so ...

so ....

I used to think I was going to hell, because I never get it right, but I'm not paranoid like that any more. Am I. No. Am I? No. Hell is guilt. .

Yes, the ethical shopping business is complicated.

I get organic vegetables from Riverford https://www.riverford.co.uk and they do import some of their fruit and veg. They reckon it's less environmentally damaging to truck vegetabes from France and Spain than it is to use heated greenhouses in the UK.

On the (naturally) colored corn chips, besides blue, there are also white, yellow and red varieties available in the marketplace, green and purple varieties under development.

The purple seed corn smells like grapes.

Black amaranth makes a cast-iron grey colored tortilla or chip, the color of new cast iron, without the metallic gleam, almost indistinguishable from corn chips in color and flavor and texture.

Evening all!

That's interesting mvp about Riverford's importing logic. Riverford are great!

We used to live about a mile away from their original farm and shop, in South Devon, when a cabbage was a cabbage and that's about all you got.

And they do good deliveries to Exeter!

Of course a cabbage still is a cabbage, , its just that they seem to have branched out into all sorts of wholefoods in their shop.

Do you get their veg box delivered?

They'll probably stock those amazing chips that ITI is describing. mmm. Hungry now.

Black amaranth and purple seed corn chips. That's amazing. Hungry, hungry, hungry. I'd walk to the States to buy them if there was no importing.

How would I walk across the Atlantic? Erm ...

We've just got a lovely Christmas tree that isn't really a Christmas tree.

It's made by a local craftslady from driftwood she finds on the nearby beaches. It's still tree shaped, long lower branches, tapering to smaller upper branches, and the top bit looks like a little birdie.



And I've put a few tasteful baubles on it and some incredibly annoying LED white lights that have many sequences.

Quick flashes, slow flashes, on off on off, twinkle twinkle crazy manic little lights.

Luckily there's constant setting, like the old days.

I'm getting used to one of the sequences, it reminds me that creation is strange and unpredictable.

It looks great. I love our driftwood non-Christmas Christmas tree.

Sounds great. And reminds me of my friend from Texas, who always decorated her very tall, thin potted cactus with jalapeno Christmas lights...

We went to stay with my in-laws in Yorkshire for a few days. We did three lovely walks, ate a lot of good food, and made a fuss of their very friendly .

Now there are only two of us for Christmas, because our son is doing voluntary work in Nepal. We will have a minimalist Christmas .
But whatever you are doing for Christmas, enjoy yourselves and let's hope for a peaceful New Year.

Wow. I wish your son a safe trip and good memories in Nepal - good for him!

And for you and your husband, a lovely holiday together.

I love the thought of a lit up cactus.

Reminds me of Tucson Arizona, when we went there years ago. I remember a café with cacti and lights. And people in dusty leather boots, reading poetry books. What?? Amazing how memory plays tricks. Actually, I think that's real.

Sounds amazing mvp!!

Nepal eh? That's very adventurous indeed! Excellent!

We're having a really quiet Christmas also, just the two of us. Ah lovely.

Been drinking quite a lot of mulled wine recently, with various friends, and then pledging undying love to each other, plus various passing spaniels, angels and minstrels.

Have a wonderful Christmas/holidays/festival of light/ whatever it is to you all.

Just remembered, its the solstice tonight! Shortest day. Before we know it we'll be springing into spring.